Avoid Weather Delays: United Now Texts Live Radar Maps & Uses AI For Updates

Thursday, July 4, 2024

United Airlines is revolutionizing how it communicates with customers by utilizing AI tools and live radar maps to provide real-time updates, especially during weather delays. This initiative aims to give travelers as much information as possible about their trips, ensuring they stay informed even when things don’t go as planned.

Real-Time Weather Updates

Introducing Live Radar Maps

United Airlines now texts customers links to local, live radar maps during weather delays. This new feature helps customers understand how weather in one part of the country can impact flights elsewhere. United is the first U.S. airline to provide such specific messages, with assistance from generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) tools.

Jason Birnbaum, United’s Chief Information Officer, emphasized the importance of transparency: “With more people traveling this summer than ever, we wanted to give our customers an easier way to stay connected to real-time information about their flight, and texting was the simplest solution.”

How It Works

Specialized Customer Service Teams and AI Integration

Specialized customer service teams located in the network operations center work alongside flight operations teams. They use gen AI to review flight data and write comprehensive messages about flight changes. These messages are then sent to customers via text or email, providing relevant information on why flight plans are changing.

During weather events, these messages include links to live radar maps, showing weather details across flight paths. Customers on all flights can access these weather maps in the United app under flight status updates, and radar maps are displayed in gate areas when flights are delayed due to weather.

Leading with Customer Transparency

United’s Technological Innovations

United Airlines has long been a leader in implementing new technologies to increase customer transparency. Some key initiatives include:

• Automatic Rebooking Assistance: United’s self-service tools automatically provide travelers with personalized rebooking options, bag tracking information, and meal and hotel vouchers when eligible if their flight is delayed or canceled.
• Real-Time Flight Updates: United is the first U.S. airline to offer real-time access to boarding passes, gate and seat numbers, and countdown clocks to departure time directly on customers’ phone screens, all without opening the United app.
• Free Family Seating: United offers a dynamic seat map feature that makes it easier to seat children under 12 next to an adult in their party for free, even for travelers in Basic Economy.
• No Change Fees: In August 2020, United eliminated change fees, offering more flexibility for travel plans and complimentary standby travel, becoming the only U.S. airline that lets all customers in all classes of service fly same-day standby for free.

Busiest Fourth of July Weekend on Record

Record-Breaking Travel

United expects its busiest Fourth of July weekend on record, with over five million passengers flying between June 28 and July 8, a more than 7% increase compared to last year.

About United Airlines

Company Overview

At United, Good Leads The Way. With U.S. hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., United operates the most comprehensive global route network among North American carriers. It is now the largest airline in the world as measured by available seat miles. For more information about joining the United team, visit their website United Airlines Holdings, Inc., the parent company of United Airlines, Inc., is traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol “UAL”.

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